Before my pregnancy, I had a consistent meditation practice of at least 45 minutes a day. Taking this time each morning helped me stay more present, centered, and calm throughout my day. Despite my best intentions to have the most “mindful” pregnancy possible, I was lucky to get in a short meditation once a week. Stay awake for 10 straight minutes while sitting (okay, let’s be honest, lying) in complete silence? Forget it, especially during my first two trimesters! In my first weeks and months of motherhood, I completely abandoned all I had learned over the past few years about the necessity of consciously experiencing my life just when I needed it most. I was on auto-pilot between breastfeeding 8 times a day, (trying to) maintain a tidy house, spend time with my husband, and resuming my full-time job outside the home. I had almost resigned myself to life as a sleep-deprived zombie when I realized I needed to start with something simple.
It wasn’t going to be possible to return to my daily 45 minute meditations at that point, but could I find 1 minute a day? Or even better, could I begin seeing the experience of having an infant as a way to practice mindfulness rather than a hindrance to it? By challenging myself with these questions I found several new practices that helped return me to the present.
